FLIGHT CONTINUES DESPITE FAILURES OF SHUTTLE RADIO

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD, Special to the New York Times

Published: March 27, 1982

HOUSTON, March 26—
Three of the space shuttle Columbia's communications links to earth failed in the night, but the project's officials said today that backup systems were sufficient for the astronauts to continue the mission to its scheduled conclusion Monday.

The failures raised concern for a time that the flight of the Columbia might have to be ended prematurely, because the affected system is the primary one for voice communications and for tracking the spacecraft in orbit and on its re-entry and descent.

At a news conference, Eugene F. Kranz, deputy director for flight operations at the Johnson Space Center, said, ''As far as I'm concerned, the mission is going full duration.'' Complex But Flexible

He said that except for the Columbia's computers, the spacecraft's communications system ''is as complex a system as we have on board,'' but it ''has a signficant amount of flexibility.''

Mr. Kranz said the failures thus far had neither degraded the flow of operational and scientific data from the spaceship nor threatened the safety of the crew.

The trouble arose in the Columbia's two S-band transponders, which process voice and data signals before they are amplified and transmitted to ground tracking stations, the so-called ''downlink'' function. Both transponders are inoperable in the low-energy transmission mode. One was also inoperable in the high-energy mode, but the second is still functioning at high energy. Communications Redundancy

In addition, Mr. Kranz emphasized, other transmitters can still be used for frequency-modulation radio transmissions and other means of communication are also available. This, he said, provides redundancy in case of further failures.

''For all intents and purposes,'' Mr. Kranz said, ''we have maintained both uplink and downlink redundancy.'' No problems have affected the Columbia's reception of radio transmissions from the ground.

Harold M. Draughon, one of the flight directors, said later tonight that even if all S-band communications links failed, there were ''adequate data on board to make a re-entry.''

Mr. Draughon said investigations throughout the day were unsuccessful in determining the source of the problems with the transponders or whether they could be corrected.

The failure in one transponder occurred early Thursday evening when the Columbia was passing over Hawaii. Two orbits later, also over Hawaii, the other transponder failed.

Efforts to correct the communications troubles by sending new instructions to the transponders were unavailing. No further trouble-shooting attempts are expected, Mr. Kranz said, unless a malfunction crops up in the one good link, the high-energy mode of one transponder.

Meanwhile, the astronauts, Col. Jack R. Lousma of the Marine Corps and Col. C. Gordon Fullerton of the Air Force, spent a busy day in orbit and were reported to be feeling better than in the early days of flight, when they suffered from fatigue and motion sickness.

Weather at their primary landing site on Monday, White Sands Missile Range, N.M., is expected to be favorable. But if the Columbia had to return earlier, on Saturday or Sunday, the weather could pose a problem. High winds were kicking up the white gypsum dust at the desert landing strip today. If the winds do not die down, flight controllers are considering extending the flight an extra day and ordering a landing at White Sands on Tuesday. They reported that the spaceship had ample provisions for an extension of at least one day, probably for two days.

The alternative landing site is likely to be the concrete runway at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But the flight controllers would prefer a desert landing, where there is more margin for error.

The astronauts' fifth day in space began with a wake-up call from Mission Control shortly before 7 A.M. The crew reported they had had a good night's rest and were feeling fit for a full day of operating science instruments and trying to solve the communications problem. Test Firing of Engines

After breakfast, Colonel Lousma fired the Columbia's two orbital maneuvering rockets for 100 seconds to test how they would function after being subjected to the extreme cold of space, with temperatures as low as 200 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. The spaceship had been oriented with its nose to the sun and its tail, where the engines are mounted, in shadow.

The engines show no apparent effects from the cold after the test firing, which slightly changed the Columbia's course, from an orbit about 148 miles high to one ranging from 148 to 156 miles.

Later in the morning, Colonel Fullerton activated the 50-foot mechanical arm and for the second day grasped a bundle of scientific instruments, called a PDP, for plasma diagnostic package, and waved it out of the cargo bay. View of Mechanical Arm

''Got an interesting picture looking out the overhead windows,'' Colonel Fullerton said. ''We're upside down, trailing over lots of clouds. Black sky's in the background and the PDP is leading the whole show. We've got the arm up way over the cockpit with the PDP hanging up over the nose.''

While Colonel Fullerton manipulated the arm from a control panel at the rear of the cockpit, Colonel Lousma set switches on another panel to prepare for the communications tests.

The assumption made after studying the situation overnight was that the radio failure did not seem to be associated with equipment but with software, or the electronic instructions.

Engineers at Mission Control transmitted a stream of instructions to the balky units in an effort to clear the circuitry of any possible ''logic hang-up.'' but the procedures were unsuccessful, Mission Control announced.

At that time, at least as far as any announcement from the space agency detailed, the only problem centered in transponder No. 2. It could receive all signals from earth stations - the uplink, as it is called - but in the downlink, the transponder could operate only in its high-rate power mode. Its low-rate mode had failed.

According to all statements from Mission Control, transponder No. 1 was ''functioning normally'' in both modes. Late in the afternoon, however, Terry White, the public affairs commentator at Mission Control, reviewing status, said that the No. 1 transponder had no downlink output in either mode and that No. 2 had no output in the low mode. The high mode for No. 2, Mr. White said, ''is still operational and giving no problems.''